Salesman-in-Chief Promotes Medicare Drug Plan
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — With the initial enrollment period for the Medicare prescription drug plan more than half over, President Bush played the pitchman Tuesday, campaigning at a community meeting and senior residence to encourage participation in the program.
"Take a look!" the president said, his voice rising. "It's a good deal."
For 34 minutes, the president was the emcee of a traveling infomercial, calling on his experts to talk about the drug program's benefits. The participants included the head of the Medicare program, the manager of a grocery chain's local pharmacies, and a retired couple who had signed up for the program and had little but praise for it.
"Call 1-800-MEDICARE, or go to medicare.gov on the Internet," Bush exhorted about 1,000 people in the gymnasium of Canandaigua Academy, a public high school in this city near Rochester in upstate New York. "You'll see," he said of the Medicare website. "It's user-friendly."
The president has made only rare visits to generally Democratic New York state, and this time he chose a district that is reliably Republican. His presentation offered a contrast to those by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is running for a second term this year and has made regular forays upstate in recent weeks, often dwelling on the problems that she says would-be participants have encountered trying to join the Medicare drug program.
The president has frequently presented the addition of the drug plan as the most dramatic overhaul of Medicare in its four decades. It is the signature domestic program of an administration that has focused most heavily on national security matters.
But navigating the ins and outs of the program, and deciding which of the drug insurance plans the private insurers offer best fits one's needs, has confounded many potential participants. In California alone, seniors can choose from 47 plans.
In a letter sent to Bush on Tuesday, senior Democrats asked that he extend the enrollment period to the end of the year because, in the words of Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan, it was "needlessly complicated."
The president defended the number of choices that potential beneficiaries faced, but acknowledged the confusion.
